


Caretaking

by not_poignant



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, PWP, Porn Without Plot, Puck that is not how you help someone get better, Puckleberry, Season/Series 01, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:02:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during Season 1 (though still AU), Rachel has come down with a virus that has run down almost all of the Glee club. Puck offers to take her home from practice and, well, his idea of helping someone through an illness isn't really the average person's idea of what caretaking involves. PWP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caretaking

They had all caught it, a virus that started with sore throats and weakness, and knocked almost all the kids out of Glee. All except Rachel, who had started on a regimen of Echinacea, honey and lemon drinks, zinc, wet towels draped over her face, drinking ridiculous amounts of water and about forty other things that made Puck's head hurt.

And then as the rest of the Glee kids were starting to recover, and Puck's own voice had moved from non-existent to 'sexy-phone-sex-hoarse,' Rachel came in looking pale.

'I don't think I can practice today, Mr. Schue,' she said, by way of explanation, her voice worn. She looked heartbroken. Puck frowned to himself. He didn't usually care about these things, but a sick girl brought out his fleeting, inconsistent, 'why do I have that again?' caring side. Especially a sick girl with wide, disappointed eyes and a pouting bottom lip. Also, he was willing to place bets that Rachel wouldn't talk as much when she was sick, which was always a winner.

He looked around the room, shrugged because he was bored and said, 'I can't sing properly anyway, I'll take the Diva home.'

Mr. Schue nodded, Quinn shot Puck a look of disgust, and Rachel actually winced.

'I'm not sure...'

'Actually it sounds like a good idea,' Mr Schue cut in, 'this thing hits pretty hard, and the sooner you're resting, the sooner you'll be back hitting those high notes.'

Rachel sighed and subsided without saying anything, and Puck smirked, he could both do his good deed for the week, and get the satisfaction of seeing Rachel in one of the few hours of her life where she wasn't talking as much.

The drive home was fairly quiet. Rachel shuffled uncomfortably on the seat, looked over at him, looked out the window, and eventually slumped in the chair and looked stubbornly out of the windscreen.

'You're one of those chicks aren't you? Hates being sick. Too many things to be doing. Too many songs to be singing, or something. Too many second-hand stores to trawl for old women's skirts.'

Rachel glared at him. She grit her teeth. Puck remembered the first day the virus hit, his throat had been insane with the painful. When they slowed to a stop at the lights, he leaned across her and ignored her shifting to get away from him, opened the glovebox, and handed her a packet of medicated grape throat lozenges.

'They're good. Honest.'

She looked at him gratefully.

'Thank you,' she managed, and she popped one out of the blister pack and started sucking on it immediately. Puck willed himself not to think dirty thoughts, and then decided that was just not in his nature. It occurred to him that she was going to taste like grape now. 

'These are good,' she said softly, a moment later. 'It's helping.'

'I'm not so bad, after all, am I?' he drawled, raising an eyebrow. She smiled shyly, and he was caught off guard by that expression on her pale face. Sometimes, when it was just the two of them, he slipped into a space where everything quietened down and her abrasiveness disappeared, and his need to pick, pick, pick at her evaporated.

And then she said; 'It's one lozenge, Puck, not a cure for cancer,' and he slipped straight out of that mental space with a jolt and decided that Rachel could be a bitch when she was sick. 

Her fathers aren't home when they get there, and she walked up the stairs to her room slowly, Puck trailing behind her. She said he didn't have to come in, but he wanted to make sure she actually rested, instead of doing what he thought she might do when sick; work.

She started fussing around her room, opening up books on homework, looking like she had no intention of lying down. He shook his head, walked to the bed and drew back to blankets and patted the sheets loudly and significantly. 

'Rest means actual resting.'

'I hardly think doing homework first is going to really stop me from getting sick now,' she said, but she looked worn and tired. He shook his head at her. 

'I mean it.'

'While you're here? What, you want to watch me get changed too?'

'Are you offering?' He grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes and said nothing. 'Fine. I will give you five minutes, and when I get back in this room, you had better be changed and in that bed. I mean it.'

He left the room and closed the door gently behind him. And then after a moment he walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. He’s not very familiar with the place, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out a kettle, and the lemon and honey was easy to find as she'd already been drinking it. He measured out generous amounts of honey, generous amounts of lemon, and walked back up five minutes later with that and a cold bottle of water so she stayed hydrated. His method of looking after himself when sick is 'sleep until better,' but he figured Rachel might not be so good at the sleep thing, so the other bits and pieces might actually help as well. It wasn’t that he intended to spend part of the afternoon looking after Rachel, but now that he’d started, he was actually kind of enjoying himself.

When he walked in, she was under the covers, sitting, blankets pulled up high. She looked surprised to see the mug and the water. When he set them down she grabbed the mug, sniffed it, and looked at him with a puzzled gratitude.

'I don't like being sick,' she said softly. He sighed and sat down on the bed next to her, wondered what she put on when she was planning on sleeping. He wondered if it was anything like that nightgown he’d dreamed about. 

'No one does,' he said.

'I _really_ don't like it. My Dads are great, but they don't,' she swallows and winces at the pain it causes her. Puck winces a little with her. 'They don't really do that whole fussing after you when you're sick. I mean they do so much for me, don't get me wrong. But they're not the fussing types.'

Puck furrowed his brow, because he knew how much that sucked from personal experience, and because he has learnt that he actually does like fussing over sick people. One of his aunts had needed chemotherapy to get over cancer, and he actually liked visiting her every day, checking to see that she had what she needed, watching crazy romantic comedies with her so that she wasn't alone during some of the worst of it. Not that he'd ever tell anyone. _Ever._ Shit like that could ruin his reputation.

He leaned forwards and felt her forehead with the back of his hand. It felt warm, but not too hot. And instead he noticed her soft, smooth skin under his own. He took in her wide, vulnerable eyes that watched him uncertainly. There was something in the drawn nature of her face, and he just shook his head. 

'You really don't handle being sick very well, do you?'

'I hate it,' she whispered.

He scooted closer, moving the hand that was on her forehead down so that it cupped her cheek, touched her hair with his other hand. She closed her eyes briefly, opened them. Her eyes were asking him questions and he ignored them.   
When he kissed her, it was nothing like the last time. Her lips were clean of flavoured gloss and tasted like lemon, honey and grape. He licked them gently, and cradled her head in his fingers. Her mouth opened to him on a sigh, and her hands came out from under the covers and reached towards him. But they stopped, hesitantly, on the bed before they actually touched him. When their tongues touched, she moved backwards. 'You might...catch it again,' she said, and he shrugged.

'I handle being sick just fine. And you are just so fucking precious.'

He leaned in and kissed her again, and this time she leaned forwards, the covers shifting down naturally. When he drew back and saw the pale, pink slip she was wearing, he decided that it might be time to say a special thank you to god. 

'I have condoms,' he said stupidly, and then fought the urge to smack himself in the forehead for that one. _Come on, Puck, you’re smoother than that,_ he thought. Clearly seeing Rachel wearing very little erased his ability to have anything approaching tact. 

'So do I,' she said softly, blushing. And then she offered a small, mischievous smile and reached into her top drawer, shifted around underneath panties (which Puck just gazed at, letting the vision be etched into his memory forever). She drew out a small pink decorative container. She handed it to him and he opened it, saw the condoms inside and whistled. Then he put the container back on her bedside cabinet and kissed her again. Sex would be very nice, he’s always happy for there to be sex, and maybe it would have the added benefit of taking Rachel’s mind off her sore throat. 

He had kissed her before, so he wasn’t surprised at her responsiveness. Her hands weren’t shy, and they drifted easily under his shirt. Her lips matched his for passion. When she moved back to catch her breath, she swallowed and then scrunched her face up in pain. 

'Throat hurts?' he asked, and she nodded mutely. He frowned. Maybe she was too sick. Maybe he should just wait for her to fall asleep and go home, as much as it chagrined him to think that. 

‘Maybe we shouldn’t,’ he said, unable to stop rolling his eyes at himself for saying as much. Rachel laughed soundlessly at him. 

‘Maybe it’s helping,’ she said back, and swallowed again, winced again.

'Let me take care of that.' He kissed her mouth once, and then trailed down and kissed her neck softly and gently. It was hot under his lips, and he licked her throat, knowing the air would cool the wet paths his tongue had made. Rachel gasped, and he reached up with fingers and stroked them down the other side of her neck.

A switch seemed to go off in her head, an invisible one, and suddenly she was _really_ into it. She reached down, grasped his shirt, pulled it over his head and then began stroking and squeezing his arms before moving to his chest. Impatiently, she grabbed one of his hands and placed it on her breast, over the slip, and he ran his palm over it instinctively. She arched in response, and his mouth dropped open.

'Well, the doctor ordered rest, and I bet you'll sleep pretty well after this.'

'Shut up, Noah,' she said, though there were no barbs in her voice, and he caught the hint of a smile playing on her lips when he chanced a glance in her direction.

After that, Puck helped Rachel take off her slip, insisting that she was too weak to do it on her own, but really he just wanted to do it himself. And then his lips found their way everywhere. The corner of her ear, the place where her hair met the side of her neck, the dip in her collarbone, and then down over her breasts, across her nipples. She was making small, choked off noises, saving herself the pain of the louder stuff he knew she'd probably do if her throat didn't feel like razors were growing in it. She arched when he drew his palms from her upper ribs all the way down to her hip-bones, and then let his thumbs rest on the edge of her panties, which were an unexpected black. She reached down and flicked the button on his jeans open, moved the fly down like she'd been doing this all her life. He shook his head a little. He was in trouble here.

'Tell me you're not too tired for this,' he said, wishing he could blame his hoarseness entirely on recovering from the virus.

In answer, Rachel unhooked her panties off her hips and legs with one hand. Her expression was one Puck couldn't read, serious and daring and vulnerable all at the same time. He leaned in and kissed her until her eyelids lowered and her expression softened. He let his fingers smooth up her inner thigh and then stroked fingertips through her curls, feeling her shiver. He hesitated, and then pushed gentle fingers through the curls, stroking up and down her wetness, hungry for more but waiting to see how far Rachel was happy to go. She moaned, and laughed a little, despairingly.

'You're coming over tomorrow to make up for destroying my throat today,' she said, a glimmer of that primness coming through, despite her continued gasps and hard exhales as he explored her wetness. He barely ghosted over her clitoris, and ran his fingers slowly everywhere else, getting a feel for her. He was not a man who was scared of pussy, having had countless older women introduce him to it. When he slipped a finger into her, Rachel's hips bucked into him, and she bit the part of his arm she could reach.

'Damn, Berry,' he groaned, feeling how tight she was. He didn't wait, used another finger, looked longingly over at the pink container of condoms, covered in girly flower stickers which was just so _Rachel._ He splayed his fingers, shook his head, because she was still a virgin and man, maybe he _shouldn’t._

He started to withdraw, muttered something about how her first time shouldn't be like this. And she pressed a sound out of her throat in frustration and handed him the container on her bed-stand.

'Come on, Puck, now is not the time to hesitate. It's not like I particularly want to be a virgin anyway, I gave up on the romantic notion of a woman losing her virginity being a special occasion a long, long time ago. I'm not naive. I'm already in pain from this voice-destroying virus of doom, I think today would be a good day to not have to worry about my hymen anymore.'

Puck closed his eyes, because at any other time, her little speech would have turned him off. Rachel talking. Rachel talking a lot. Rachel using technical terms like hymen. He shook his head. He should not be enjoying this.

'Shut up, Rachel,' he said, but he smiled warmly at her as he took the container out of her hands and removed a condom. 'What the Glee-queen wants, she gets.'

'Good,' she said, arching a brow, and smiling anyway.

_Awesome,_ he thought. But instead of putting the condom on straight away, he went back to teasing her. He licked, and then gently bit her nipples, his fingers found their way inside of her again. When she reached for his cock, he batted her hand away and told her that she should be resting, in the driest tone he can muster. Rachel relaxed by degrees into the bed, eyes closed, sighing one moment and then whimpering the next. Her legs spread further, and he settled comfortably between them, thinking that even if he got the stupid virus again, even if he ended up in hospital with pneumonia (not likely), it would be really fucking worth it. 

He worked Rachel over until she was boneless against the sheets, pulling at his arms, opening her eyes and casting pleading, helpless looks in his direction. He withdrew his wet, sticky fingers and put the condom on, still hardly able to believe this was actually happening. When he presses the tip of himself against her, he pauses, checks again with an eloquent, questioning look.

'Do it,’ she said softly, hungrily, daring him with warm, brown eyes. He shook his head at her, half-smiled, and then pushed in gently, slowly. He withdrew, and did that again, easy and watching her for any signs of pain. Aside from a brief wince, Rachel nodded at him and kept doing it, until he moved more confidently. 

‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she gasped, ‘don’t stop. It doesn’t, it’s just different.’ 

The cognitive part of his brain was sucked into the vortex of how hot and tight and wet she was, and he kept moving back and forth, deeper, until he was buried inside of her. 

_Fuuuuuuuck,_ he thought.

Rachel's chest was heaving beneath him and a fine sheen of sweat had broken out all over her body. He licked at her neck again, and then bit her collarbone very gently when she pushed her hips up against him.

'Move, Noah,' she said, using his first name like some kind of prayer.

'It doesn't hurt too much?'

'I'm imaginative. I was expecting so much worse. That was just, wow.' Her voice had a breathless quality that made him forget about how she's doing – she was Rachel, she'd tell him if she wanted him to do something different – and focuses on moving inside of her. He withdrew, pushed back in, and his chest hurt with how much he was enjoying himself. Rachel seemed to feel the same way, because she arched up into him, one of her legs wrapping around his back. He decided he had seriously underestimated how awesome Rachel might be in the sack. 

This part was easy for him. Easy to cant his hips backwards and reach down and find her clit, easy to listen to the way her breathing changed when he did that, easy to keep a varied, undulating rhythm going, and easy to watch her face skate across the kind of desire and tension that kept turning him on, more and more, until he has to start thinking about multiplication and algebra to keep his stamina and not just blow his load. He thinks about the Glee kids stuck doing practice, and grinned. At that point, he wished someone would make him a medal for how great he is.

He knew when Rachel got close, because she actually said so, followed by, ‘oh god, Noah, Noah,' which scatters all thoughts of math out of his head and he was suddenly fighting the urge to come in that moment. She chased after her orgasm the same way she chased after everything else, with the same fervour and wide-eyed determination. With a pro-activeness he'd never encountered in another young woman. Her hips found their own rhythm and she kissed him fiercely, teeth holding his bottom lip between them, before meeting his tongue with her own. 

When she came, she moaned into his mouth, and his arm went from supporting himself to wrapping around her, holding her against him. He closed his eyes and felt her spasm all around him, and even through the condom, it felt incredible. He groaned against her lips and came on a series of deep thrusts, feeling that white-hot blaze of catharsis come over him. He closed his eyes, and was swept away by it.

It felt like hours later, but it was only a couple of minutes, when he leant back and looked down at her. Rachel’s hair was mussed, her eyes were closed, her mouth was half-open as she continued to catch her breath. When he withdrew, she didn’t wince, just rolled her head to the side and made the tiniest of moans. 

'You are...' he said, but couldn’t complete the sentence. Too many words he couldn’t say, and he ignored them all and just said, 'wow,' instead.

'I can handle being wow,' Rachel whispered as he removed the condom, threw it into her wastepaper basket.

'Tired?' he asked her, because he is. She nodded, said nothing, and he knows he’s right; Rachel being quieter than usual is one of the best things ever. 

He kissed her a few more times, and then handed her the mug of honey and lemon, which had cooled down.

'It'll help,' he said awkwardly, and she looked at him as she sips, and then drank down half of it. She made a face.

'How strong did you make this? Do we have any honey left?'

'Yes. I'm not an idiot,' he said indignantly, and she put the mug down and touched his arm instead, looking apologetic.

'Don't go,' she said, and then moved over and made room for him on the bed. He nodded, but first picked up her slip and handed it back to her. She put it on gratefully and snuggled down under the covers, looking about as adorable as the plush teddybear on the chest of drawers behind her. He shook his head and pulled the covers down before lying on top of them. 

'Can't have your Dads' thinking I'm taking advantage of you while you're sick.'

'Of course not,' she said, droll, before allowing him one of those radiant smiles that was infectious. He smiled back, and then reached up and cleared some of her hair out of her face.

'You're good at taking care of people,' she said, though there was an impish quality to her voice.

'I'm also good at telling sick people to shut up and go to sleep,' he said, kissing her forehead and closing his own eyes.

He listened, waited, and then a few minutes later Rachel's breathing went deep and even. He relaxed more fully on her bed, looked around the room and rolled his eyes at the amazing turn of events of the day, and fell asleep soon afterwards. He hoped Rachel stayed sick for a while, so he could keep looking after her.


End file.
